


The Enemy of My Enemy is Also My Enemy

by gostaks



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen, anaander mianaai is having a really bad day, scenes from the presger conclave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23644255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gostaks/pseuds/gostaks
Summary: Anaander Mianaai attends the Presger Conclave. So does Anaander Mianaai. This goes approximately as well as one might expect.
Relationships: Anaander Mianaai & Anaander Mianaai
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41
Collections: Republic of Two Systems Independence Day Exchange 2020





	The Enemy of My Enemy is Also My Enemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1nsomnizac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nsomnizac/gifts).



> Happy RO2SID!

Not only had the Presger _insisted_ upon this farce, as if the AI case for Significance had a hope of stable orbit, but they’d given their corrupted Anaander branch equal status as a delegate. It was gloating, pure and simple.

The Traitor gestured acknowledgement of Anaander as they approached each other. An outside observer likely would not have noticed the concealed hatred in the Traitor’s eyes, but Anaander knew her own face better than a station knew its residents. She could _tell._ Anaander strayed idly closer to the center of the corridor, placing herself so that the Traitor would have to either collide with her or dodge out of the way. They quite nearly smashed into each other, but at the last moment the Traitor stepped smoothly to the left, avoiding Anaander entirely.

Anaander turned back to look at the Traitor. It was apparently unconcerned about the fact that it had just lost a battle of symbolic dominance, but Anaander wasn’t fooled. She could see the tension radiating off the Traitor, just waiting for its chance to get her back. Well, Anaander would be ready.

-

The Presger had placed the main meeting space in the center of the station. It was shaped as a large sphere, with desks and chairs for human delegates at the gravitational bottom, a wide bland of clear material enclosing a tank for Geck around the horizontal equator, and a tangle of bars and ropes suspended from the ceiling for the Rrrrrr and their human companions. Anaander rankled at being placed, symbolically, below the other species. Not every civilization viewed ‘down’ as a negative, and the bottom of the sphere was the most logical place to put desks, but Anaander wasn’t about to give the Presger the benefit of the doubt when she could assume they were out to snub her. 

At the very least, she noted with some satisfaction, they’d placed the AI contingent in the same space as the humans, occupying a small slice of the available seats. That placed them and their human bodies right where it would be obvious to all observers that their claim to be a separate Significant species was patently ridiculous.

The Traitor arrived a few minutes later, gesturing acknowledgement to the AIs. The fragment of _Justice of Toren_ that stubbornly refused to realize that it was dead shot back a much ruder acknowledgement, provoking quiet laughter from some of the humans that accompanied it. Anaander was almost tempted to join them. The Traitor, though, simply smiled and moved to its desk.

After several minutes of Anaander splitting her attention between the Traitor and the AIs, a Dlique appeared. She had not entered through a door, but simply began to exist at the lowest point of the sphere between one blink and the next. Frustrating trick, that, but one that they didn’t seem capable of outside their own ships and stations. So far as Anaander knew. She’d taken precautions, of course, but one simply couldn’t live a productive life while worrying about invisible Presger around every corner.

The Dlique cleared its throat, “Thank you all for coming, delegates. I understand that you’ve all come a very long way, so let’s not delay any further.” She paused, melodramatically, “The Conclave has decided that AIs are a Significant species. Thank you all for coming.”

“That is not acceptable!” Anaander said, standing. She had well over three thousand years of public speaking experience, and her voice filled the room very acceptably, even if most of the delegates would not hear her speaking in Radchaai. “I have further information that shows that AIs should be considered humans for the purposes of the Treaty.” Anaander didn’t like claiming AIs as humans, even if ‘human for the purposes of the Treaty’ already included non-humans by civilized standards, but it was one of her stronger arguments.

“By all means, Delegate, if you have further information, please upload it.”

Anaander sent her first batch of files to the station with a dismissive gesture.

The Dlique spent a moment processing, then said, “Thank you, Delegate, for this additional information. In light of what’s been presented here, it seems that the Conclave agrees that AIs are actually human, and thus cannot be a different Significant species. Thank you all for your time.” The Dlique bowed deeply and turned, as if to go.

“With your pardon, Translator,” the fragment of _Justice of Toren_ said, “I have several objections.”

Then the conclave began in earnest.

-

Anaander found the Traitor in line for a bathroom. There had been significant pre-conclave debate about whether the neutral station would contain ungendered shared bathrooms, like any civilized society, or separate them. The Presger’s idea of an acceptable compromise seemed to be one bathroom for every gender they could think of. Anaander glared at the Traitor as it walked into a stall labeled ‘Tentative Regret’, then slipped past another delegate into ‘Man v3.5.17’. 

-

Anaander and the galaxy’s most annoying ancillary had dominated the room before the first break, but now Anaander stepped back and let other delegates speak. Those who made a firm case for one side or the other were outnumbered by the ones who, it seemed, simply wanted a chance to hear themselves talk. Whenever the latter came up, Anaander had to resist the temptation to interrupt them with another of her talking points. It was better to be patient.

The Dlique flipped her official opinion seemingly at random, sometimes changing in response to completely neutral statements, and once, after listening to a long and careful argument for why the AIs should be considered Significant, announcing that, upon consideration, the Conclave had changed its decision and AIs could not possibly be Significant. The delegate who had presented that particular argument now bent over her desk, tapping her forehead lightly against the table.

The Traitor, so far, had only watched. It sat back in its seat, face studiously blank in the expression Anaander used to conceal amusement. Of course this _amused_ her.

Anaander maintained eye contact with the Traitor as she presented her next point—this one based on an obscure case four hundred years ago where a human had embedded herself in a ship, effectively, or so she argued, becoming an AI.

She was probably only imagining that the Traitor’s blank mask concealed just a hint of a smile.

-

“What do you _want?”_ Anaander demanded. They’d ended up alone, somehow, in one of the station’s seemingly endless white corridors. The body Anaander had sent to the Conclave was younger and healthier than the Traitor’s, and she held it against the wall. It didn’t struggle.

“I only want what’s best for the Radch,” it mocked her.

“What do your Presger masters want, then?”

“I believe I’ve made it clear that I do not answer to the Presger. If you refuse to accept that, it’s no fault of my own.” It twisted its face into a smug smile.

“Won’t you at least argue against that rogue AI? If you want what’s best for the Radch,” Anaander reminded her, “you know that it needs AI-equipped ships to protect it.”

“It does.”

“Then why won’t you _do_ anything? _Justice of Toren_ is winning.”

The Traitor smiled wider, “Why should I, when you’re doing everything I want you to do?”

Anaander didn’t say anything to that, just pressed the Traitor harder against the wall.

“You can kiss me if you want, you know. No one can see us here.”

-

The Traitor was no longer trying to hide its smile. Every time Anaander made an argument, its mouth crept wider. It had reached a state that would have been disturbing even if it hadn’t been Anaander’s own face contorted into a rictus.

Anaander’s documentation was wearing thin. She had weeks of bullshit left, but for the most part she’d led with her best arguments. The trick to swaying a Conclave was to put the best data possible into the processing algorithms or whatever the Presger used to make decisions, then hold out until her opponent got bored, gave up, or mysteriously turned up dead.

And there the Traitor was, smiling wider with every argument Anaander made.

The Dlique finished reviewing a deeply circuitous Geck proposal, “Thank you for the contribution, Delegate. You’re correct that this case might provide a precedent, given the contributions of,” the Dlique pronounced two Rrrrrr names in quick succession, more accurately than baseline human vocal cords could have managed. “In light of this new information, the Conclave has decided that AIs are inSignificant. Delegates, I am grateful you took the time to attend.”

Anaander was doing everything the traitor wanted, was she?

She shoved all of the bullshit arguments to the side and stood, “Translator, if you please?”

“Yes, Delegate?”

“I withdraw my previous objections. I would now like to present my case for AIs to be considered Significant.”

The Traitor could choke on _that._


End file.
